


In The Bedroom After The War

by BristlingBassoon



Category: Joyeux Noël | Merry Christmas (2005)
Genre: Bisexuality, Blowjobs, First Time Bottoming, Fisting, From enemies to lovers (technically), Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Paris - Freeform, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Post-War, Post-World War I, just like lots of sex, lavender marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28476378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BristlingBassoon/pseuds/BristlingBassoon
Summary: “Sometimes I want more than you can give me,” he says quietly, watching as Adelbert’s breath forms clouds in the cold night air.“It’s legal in France,” Camille says, a wry smile forming on his lips.
Relationships: Lt Audebert/Lt Horstmayer (Joyeux Noël)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	In The Bedroom After The War

Karl Horstmayer is no longer a Leutnant by the time he makes it to Rue Vavin. Just an ordinary man now, in ordinary clothes, trying hard to forget the whole four years of standing in mud, bitten by lice, trying not to die.

First, France, where he led the 93rd infantry. Every day, trying to convince them that they weren’t there for nothing. Then the Eastern Front. Battle weary men, a Russian winter. Three years of it.

He could thank God he wasn’t injured or gassed, but that only meant a longer war for him. He wishes he could forget all of it.

Almost.

There’s three whole days, three tenuous, perfect days, as fragile and beautiful as blown glass, which he turns over and over in his mind, careful not to shatter them. Where enemies became new friends. Where they had time to grieve, to sing, to eat, to drink, to live as men once more.

Sprink, singing, that pure, even voice in the cold air, no shake of fear in it. The smell of the weinachtsbaum. And then that one man. Audebert.  
Something sad in his eyes, but wasn’t it there in all of their faces?

 _Rue Vavin._ It’s a funny thing to have in common but both men seized onto it like a rope thrown to a drowning man. He remembers handing over the wallet to Audebert, and how the lieutenant’s face coloured with naked emotion, even if the photo never seemed as meaningful to Karl as Audebert’s little sketches. To produce an image from memory, with your own hands. That’s precious.

He never had much time for artists before, but -

Sprink’s clean, pure voice.  
Audebert’s sketches.

He was wrong to dismiss them. Sprink did more with that voice than Karl ever could - and he knows that in Audebert’s little book are drawings of the whole damn thing.

He wishes he could see them again. And tonight, in a way, he will.

It’s strange to see Audebert in street clothes. He always thinks of him in blue and red - that neat uniform that could be preposterous on another man, but seems elegant on the French commander. He remembers the sensation of muddy navy wool beneath his hand.

Audebert smiles at him across the room, gets to his feet. One of those small, round tables they always seem to have in France, where you can’t sit with another man without your knees knocking. He feels nervous about the proximity, that the brush of one leg against another might give him away.

Dear man, Audebert.

“You look well,” Audebert says warmly, clasping him by the shoulders. Feeling shy, Karl smiles at him, puts a hand on his arm. Then, Audebert dips forward and kisses him.

It’s just _la bise_ , Karl reminds himself, as he feels Audebert’s moustache brush against his cheek, Audebert’s lips warm. He can hear the other man’s quiet breath. It’s quick but the flutter lasts in him. Just a greeting, but a kind, fraternal one. More than he could ever hope for.

“How are you?” Karl says quietly, his voice a murmur in the crowded bar.

Audebert smiles. “I manage. It’s been a strange four years, but, well, here we are. Finally, a different circumstance.” He gestures to the bar. “Can I get you a drink?”

“I’d love that,” Karl says.

“I think, in these circumstances, we can only have champagne.” Adelbert walks to the bar and comes back with a bottle and two glasses.

Karl hasn’t had champagne since 1914.

Adelbert raises his glass. “To Rue Vavin.” He looks steadily into Karl’s eyes for the duration of the toast. Not unusual, it’s the custom after all. “And to a new beginning.”

“To a new beginning,” Karl says, clinking glasses, matching Adelbert’s gaze. He drinks. The champagne tastes high and sharp and brave. “And please, don’t stand on ceremony. I am no longer a leutnant. There is no more call for _vous._ ”

Adelbert’s smile is as sparkling as the champagne.

“To _you,_ then. Leutnant. Whatever your name might be.”

“It’s Karl.” He can’t stop looking at him, wondering where they can even begin. But he supposes this is a good start. He’s sure Adelbert must have a beautiful name. He wishes his own were more impressive.

“Camille Réne,” Adelbert answers, and damn him, Karl is right. “To you, Karl. The other man who made this happen.”

“I think we can thank Sprink more than I,” Karl demurs. “And Gordon, and the Father. And the pipers, although the first time I heard them, I must admit I found the noise infernal.”

Camille chuckles. “I thought that someone had given Nestor an inadvertent kick.”

Karl remembers the furry double-agent. Arrested for treason in the end. Preposterous, a cat has no loyalties except to his next meal.

“Poor Jörg was so tied to that cat.”

They’re quiet then.

“So you lost-“ Camille says quietly, no doubt thinking of the horrible end to their truce, Ponchel slumped to the ground, dressed in another man’s clothes.

“A Russian,” Karl says, eyes downcast, watching the bubbles in the champagne subside. “We had no truce there.”

They drink for a while longer and Karl watches Camille’s cheeks flush pink as he raises another glass of champagne. He watches the line of his throat as he swallows. Camille, in turn, pays attention. Whenever Karl finds himself wandering halfway through an anecdote he can’t remember the start of, talking for the sake of talking, at times struggling to remember a particular word, he realises Camille’s dark eyes are on him, and that the man’s face is rapt.

They share memories of the war, memories of childhood, but there’s some things Karl doesn’t want to tell him. Chief among them the way he feels. God, he barely knows the man, but what they went through - it seems a deeper knowledge than most. He could be married for twenty years and not know his wife as well as he knows this man.

He reaches across the table before he can stop himself and takes Camille’s hand.

It’s only there for a second, dry, brushing fingers, a hand fumbling against another, but Adelbert doesn’t break contact. He smiles.

“Perhaps I’ve had too much to drink,” Karl says, drawing back his hand.

“Drink makes honest men of us all,” Camille replies. He reaches for his coat. Karl can’t quite read his face then. He looks to be smiling but maybe it’s a smile of unease, of a desire to mollify this man until he can make his escape.

“Well, goodnight,” Karl is about to say. He’s hastening to his feet, but he’s barely left the chair before Camille interrupts him.

“How about a walk?”

Karl nods, and feels foolish for it.

If he has insulted Adelbert, accepting his invitation will only prolong the discomfort. He’s sure Camille has seen it in him now, the way he forgets himself and gazes. His eyes must brim with longing, he tells himself, but even as he does, he knows it’s an expression he cannot help.

They leave the crowded clatter of the bar, the press of men waving at the bartender, the half-drunk bottles and half-empty glasses, the sheer normality of it all.

The city of light is not quite what it was before the war, Karl finds, as his eyes adjust to the night sky. Some of the buildings still show signs of bomb damage. Not all the lights are on.

“Watch for the dark,” Camille says, and to Karl’s surprise, he loops his arm in his.

They walk along the street. There’s not too much to see, but moving makes him feel as if he’s doing something, going somewhere. They walk past a strange, white, stepped building that reminds Karl of a tooth.

“Something is troubling you,” Camille says. He stops, releases Karl’s arm, stands aside a little and looks at him. His face is in shadow. He can feel Camille’s eyes, rather than see them. “Do I trouble you?”

“No,” Karl says. “You never could.”

“But you are uneasy with me,” Camille says. “I would have expected the night to begin with your unease - after all, we haven’t seen each other for four years. But you started the evening a happy man and now, at the end, it seems the champagne has made you morose. And there I was, thinking it was a happy drink.”

Karl can’t think of what to say at that.

“Bad memories, perhaps?”

“No, only happy ones.”

Camille huffs. “Don’t be sad on my account, then. The war is over. I’m a happy man, and I am happy to see you, and drink with you.” It’s a strange thing to say because Karl knows that Camille cannot be happy. Not fully. None of them can. Not the way they were before, the happiness of boys untouched by death.

He cannot promise happiness. But he owes him honesty at least.

“Sometimes I want more than you can give me,” he says quietly, watching as Adelbert’s breath forms clouds in the cold night air.

He cannot meet his eyes. Looks at his shoes, at his shadow, instead.

He waits for the reaction, for the other man to back away in alarm, to remonstrate with him, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Camille steps closer, as if offering to take him into confidence. Touches his arm lightly. Karl feels a shiver run through him.

“It’s legal in France,” Camille says, a wry smile forming on his lips.

Karl takes one look about the empty street, leans forward and closes the gap between them with a kiss.

Karl’s hotel room is modest but well-appointed. Looking at it now, it seems the bed is far too small. He sits down, and Camille sits beside him, the weight of the two of them on the little bed pushing them together, thigh to thigh. Camille leans towards him and takes his head in his hands, kisses him gently, searchingly. His tongue brushes against Karl’s lower lip. Karl gasps, kisses back, taking time with it.

They break away for breath.

“Did you -“ Karl says, helpless with words now. How can he communicate the enormity of what he feels? “Have you ever - before?”

Camille chuckles. “I might ask you the same thing _._ You kiss nervously.”

 _I’m afraid_ , Karl realises. Not because he doesn't want this, but because he fears it might be too much for him. What can two men even do for each other?

“Your wife?” Karl asks, wanting to get it all on the table before they try anything. He can’t face the man drawing away from him in guilt, or leaving with regrets.

He slumps. “Are you asking if she knows?”

Karl nods. “I only ask because - well, my wife and I have an agreement.”

He met Heloise in 1912. She had come to Berlin to study arts and design, and frequented a certain bar that Karl had begin to make tentative visits to, too nervous to do much more than sit in the corner, decline dances and come to realisations about himself. She spoke German with a strange accent - learned it in Alsace, Karl later hears - and she dressed in an eclectic, mannish fashion, her hair cropped, a man’s jacket over her dress, draped artfully as if she’d just borrowed it and thrown it on to cast aside a chill. All very deliberate, he later learned.

Heloise made friends in Berlin, made them as easily as a child does. Before long, Karl started to see her with another woman, short and dark haired, with a charming little pointed face. Before long, he’d found himself befriended. When her residency in Germany seemed in jeopardy, Karl decided it might be nice to marry her. Anything to make him normal to the world around him, although at that stage he’d started being braver in the bar, exchanging kisses and touches with a few of the men, Heloise encouraging him.

“Why not go back with him?” she’d said, one evening, as he found himself unable to look away from a devastatingly handsome young musician who’d walked in and rested his violin case on the bar, drinking, the lines of him louche, looking nonchalantly about the room.

“I couldn’t,” Karl whispered. “I don’t know the first thing.”

Heloise grinned, all dark lips, one crooked tooth. Took another sip. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to show you.”

It was Heloise who taught him how to dance. Her leading, he following, “just in case you meet a fellow who wants to be the man.” He likes her friend, doesn’t feel any jealousy. He and Heloise sleep together a few times, Heloise collapsing into giggles midway through. It feels pleasant enough, he supposes, and it helps that he feels so comfortable with her - she has a habit of good-naturedly bullying him out of his nerves - but while the act doesn’t frighten him, he doesn’t long for it either.  
After a few successful unions, Heloise declares him ready for the wider world and switches to working on his French - for, like dancing, like making love, you never know when it might come in handy.

He’s just begun to feel ready when the war begins. He has one, two nights where he meets a man, and they fumble around a little, Karl in turns frightened and so excited he feels faint. The man pats him on the knee eventually and says “I’ll take care of you, liebling.” And that’s how Karl learns how pleasant it is to have someone kneel between your legs and suck you.

He’s still too reticent to do very much about it, and manages to put it out of his mind. God knows there’s enough to think about during warfare. Supply chains, orders, the wellbeing of all his men. Whether Heloise is finding factory work too taxing, if she has enough to eat.

Now, in the hotel room, with Camille’s hands on him, he wishes he’d made more of a study of intimacy with other men. He feels a fool.

“Do you do much of it?” Camille asks kindly.

“I’m -“ Karl shakes his head. _I’m too bloody shy. God help me._

Camille sighs. Karl’s heart plummets. The French are renowned lovers and he can’t possibly pass muster. Too stiff, too German. Too afraid.

He waits for Camille to get to his feet, to mutter an apology and leave, but the man stays there. “I have a wife,” he says slowly, looking at his feet. “And we don’t have an arrangement. Not truthfully, no.”

“Oh,” Karl says, feeling leaden.

“I, _merde_ \- how do I explain this?” There’s a note of hopelessness in Camille’s voice. He does get up now, and begins to pace. “When I got back from the war, saw my son for the first time, it was never the same between us as it was before. I wake at night. Screaming, swearing. Kicking out in my sleep. Sometimes I cry from nothing. I can’t explain it to her - she asks, but can’t meet my eyes. Tells me I’m a hero, when I’m not. Tells me I did my best, when it was hopeless. She’ll never understand the way that you do. She wasn’t there to see it.”

Of course, Karl thinks, disappointed. The man is only turning to him out of desperation, because his wife won’t have him anymore. He’s nothing like him after all.

Karl feels more alone than ever.

“That doesn’t explain - “ Karl says bitterly, gesturing to himself.

Camille looks at him, confused. Karl can’t help grimacing in response.

“If you miss your wife, find another woman. I’m a poor substitute for one.”

He knows he’s been cruel from the look on Camille’s face then. Crushed.

“I thought you wanted me,” Camille eventually says, his voice small.

Karl curses himself again. Not just a fool, but a damned hot-headed one. 

“I do!” Karl admits, feeling hot, heart pounding. “But - you aren’t _like_ me, you’re an ordinary man - so what are you doing here?”

Camille laughs sourly. “You think I’m ordinary? You look at me and you see something other than something contemptible? Something hollow?”

“You _aren’t,_ dear Audebert. For god’s sake, you aren’t.” Karl gets up, puts his arm on Camille’s shoulder. Irritated, he shrugs him off. Karl persists. When Camille eventually slumps towards him, falls into his arms, it’s more of a relief than a reward.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs in German, stroking the other man’s hair, hand moving gently over his head, soothing the fight out of him. “It’s alright, it’s alright…”

“I’m like you,” Camille says into his jacket, in a watery, broken voice. “I’m like you.”

————————

“I’m sorry about all that,” Camille says, lifting his dripping face away from the washstand. He’s regained his composure now, thankfully. The evening is - well, if not lost, then it’s taken several more turns than Karl expected. He’d thought they’d depart with friendly smiles at Rue Vavin, nothing lingering on their lips but their last drink. 

“I understand,” says Karl, taking a towel. He lifts it to Camille’s face, begins dabbling at the rivulets of water. The man closes his eyes, lashes wet and spiky. He looks calm, his breathing even as he lets Karl dry him. Rather like being at the barbers, Karl supposes, but being this close to him - he can see every detail of Camille’s face. He puts the towel down and Camille slowly opens his eyes and looks at him as if he, too, is remembering every detail, everything he might note down.

“Do you still draw?” Karl finds himself asking.

“Sometimes,” Camille says, a small smile breaking across his face.

“That’s good.”

Camille’s voice is light. “Shall we start the evening again, then?”

“Oh,” Karl says hesitantly. “Well, I suppose we could…”

“How about we start with this?” Camille leans forward, all warm and steady breath, and kisses him. His hands are big and warm on Karl’s face, and Karl sighs with the joy of it. He feels his body loosen, delight flowing through him like the first sip of champagne.

“What do you like?” Camille’s words buzz against his lips.

“I’m not sure,” Karl admits, shivering a little. “I’ve…ah, I haven’t done much.”

To his surprise, Camille smiles kindly and puts his hands on his shoulders in a supportive, bolstering way. “There's no need to be frightened.” He gives Karl a friendly squeeze.

“I’m not frightened,” Karl says, his heart hammering.

“I’ve done this before,” Camille assures him. “And yes, with men, before you ask. I’ll guide you.”

Karl looks at him gratefully, but still can’t bring himself to touch him, not until Camille takes hold of his hand and draws it to his chest, lets him touch his shirtfront, encourages him to start on his buttons. “If there’s anything you’re not comfortable with, just say,” Camille says. “But otherwise - I can do the rest.”

Camille unbuttons his jacket, his shirt, eases them from his shoulders. Slides his hand under his undershirt until Karl takes the hint and pulls it off. And then -

oh god -

Camille’s hand is at the front of his trousers. The trousers fall. His underthings go soon after, and now he’s standing there, near-naked, clothes puddled around his ankles.

“You might want to undo your shoes,” Camille says, a touch of amusement in his voice. Hurriedly, Karl bends to untie them, and steps out of the last of his clothes. He forces himself to let Camille look at him.

“You’re very handsome,” Camille murmurs, his hand tracing down the length of Karl’s body, taking hold of his cock.

“Can I -“ Karl says, looking at Camille. “I want to see the rest of you.”

“Of course,” Camille says, and gets undressed for him. _God_ , a man bare in front of him, and he can look as long as he desires. He hasn’t dared to dream of it.

Camille looks up at him, a spark of something in his eyes. His own desire. “Here, let me,” he says in a low purr, and starts stroking Karl, who tries to remember to breathe. He focuses on the motion of his arm, the curve of his bicep, the way Camille looks down first - down, at him - and then at him, enticingly. He pauses for a moment and takes hold of Karl’s hand, guiding it. The other man’s cock is hot and stiff and wet against his palm. He closes his fingers over it and is gratified to hear Camille’s sharp intake of breath.

He finds himself being guided to the edge of the bed and sits down heavily. Camille’s hands are on his thighs, pushing them gently apart, and his face is against the inside of his leg, his hair brushing at his tender inner thigh. Camille looks up at him, and something about the sight of those eyes -

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, and again, as Camille licks a stripe up the side of his cock, “oh _god_ , yes. _Please.”_

His lips part and he’s ducking his head to take him in his mouth. The feeling is incredible, no less because he feels so tender towards Camille, and never expected him to want him like this.

“ _Please_ ,” he says again, and Camille sucks him, and doesn’t pause once, only drawing back when the soft sucking of his mouth meets with Karl bucking and panting and finishing, his cock spilling inside Camille’s mouth, dragging back across his face, and it’s not exactly what Karl wanted- oh god, he wants so much more, he hasn’t even had a chance to return the favour - but at the same time it’s so much better than he could have hoped for.

The other man swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Karl seizes the moment and kisses him. On the forehead first, then tipping up Camille’s chin to kiss him on the mouth. He tastes himself, alkaline and strange, on Camille’s tongue. It’s raw and exciting. Camille stands, and is about to step away from between Karl’s legs, but he stills him with a touch on his thigh. He lets his hand travel around and grabs Camille’s buttock, squeezing it as if to test the soundness of his flesh. Rests his head against his belly for a moment, runs a hand along the planes of him, stroking the trail of hair leading from navel to groin, feeling how Camille is both hard - his hip, a tense of his thigh - and soft - the tenderness about his belly. He seems so vulnerable, baring himself like that. Karl tries not to think of wounds, then, of the realisation so often had in battle that man is flesh and blood and can be twisted and broken and bled beyond use, beyond recognition. He tells himself to be present. To touch. He presses a kiss to Camille’s side, lets his head drop, brushing against the hair, brushing against his cock -

Thick. Dark. Uncircumcised. He wonders how much of a difference that will make.

Just touch it, he tells himself, and he begins to fondle him.

He’s rewarded with a murmur of approval from Camille, and the man’s breathing quickening. He feels a hand lightly rest on his head, stroking his hair. It feels uncommonly nice.

“Would you like me to suck you?” Karl says, peering up at Camille, who’s looking down at him with a soft, indulgent look.

“Only if you’d like to” comes the polite response.

Ha! And him, supposed to be the stoic one. Aren’t the French passionate? Is he restraining himself for him? To hell with that! He wants him ragged. Wants him to lose control, to moan and swear and tremble for him. He’s going to take him - he doesn’t care anymore if he’s bad at it.

Karl opens his mouth, grips the cock and guides it past his lips. Camille gasps, his fingers curling suddenly in Karl’s hair.  
It’s heavy and salty and slippery in his mouth, but he lets his tongue slide, laps at him, leans forward and takes more of it in. Camille swears.

“Good?” Karl manages to say, sliding his mouth free.

“More than good.” A gasp from parted lips.

He slurps on him, letting his mouth slacken, then sucking harder, his cheeks hollowing. Grips the base of him, presses his thumb against his shaft, drags it against the head, licks rather than sucks, and then lets him do the rest. Camille moves against him, his hands all over his head, his face, and he moans in a way that makes Karl’s heart pound. A desperate, moaning gasp, his head back, mouth open, eyes closed, sweat glistening on his chest, his throat. He looks astonishing, and it thrills Karl to bring him so much pleasure. A tremble of his thighs, a high, hoarse sound, and he’s finishing, oh god, he’s finishing -

A hot pulse in his throat, his eyes watering, he instinctively pulls back and lets it spill from his mouth in thick strands. It’s still coming, spilling from him. To see him brought to the edge like this - it’s -

It’s something Karl’s wanted to do for years. Fantasised about it. Stroked himself at the thought. Now, to have it happen, it’s so unreal he could weep.

He rests his sticky face against Camille’s thigh and lets the man run fingers through his hair, murmuring all the time, _so good, thank you, I can’t believe you -_ until he seems to come to himself, and pulls Karl up by the arm as if he’d fallen, wipes him down, steers him towards the bed, _here, lie down, that’s good, that’s good_ and then he’s lying there, his back to the wall, shivering a little as the sweat cools, until Camille lies down next to him and with one arm, starts idly and fondly touching his hair, his face, touching his lips before he kisses him.

“I hope that was enough of an education,” Camille says eventually, smiling, his eyes twinkling a little, creased at the corners with a pleasant sort of mirth.

“I wasn’t completely green,” Karl grumbles. “But I enjoyed myself, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Well I loved it,” says Camille simply. He rolls over then, and presses the length of his body against Karl’s, letting Karl hold him.

“Do you have to go?” Karl says reluctantly, not wanting the moment to pass.

“No. My wife is out of town, with my son. Visiting her sister.” He swears. “I should have thought to bring you back to my place tonight, had you stay in the guest room.”

“It’s alright. I wouldn’t have wanted to presume.”

“I wasn’t sure how the evening would go.”

Privately, Karl thinks of how much more tense he’d be. The trace of her in every room.

“You don’t mind the bed?” Karl says, wriggling under the covers.

“No,” says Camille, drawing his arm around him. “This is just perfect.”

A few hours later, Karl wakes. He feels Camille stir, and whispers to him in a scratchy voice. “Are you awake?”

“Mmm.”

“Can you tell me what you like?”

Camille’s voice has a similar low scratchiness, blurry with sleep. “You mean in bed, I presume?”

“Well yes.”

A good-natured sound. “Well, I like a lot of things myself. I’m not rigid in my tastes.”

“Well yes, but every man has preferences. And maybe someday,” Karl ventures, “I’d like to do them for you.”

“You’re sweet,” Camille says fondly, “but I think if you’re looking to work your way down my list of fantasies, you’ll need a little more sleep to do it. Good night.”

“Good night then,” Karl says, and feels the warmth of Camille’s back against his chest.

They wake up to a surprising amount of sun. Karl realises he must have slept later than usual. Years of fragmented snatches of rest broken by the sound of falling shells have caused his sleep to suffer. Often he wakes before dawn and can’t drift off again. He hasn’t quite regained the habit of sleeping like a healthy man.

“You must have been tired,” Camille murmurs indulgently from beside him, tracing a finger through his hair.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Oh, a good twenty minutes or so.”

Karl lies there and lets himself enjoy the puffs of warm breath on his neck, the idle stillness of them both, enjoys the sound of Camille’s voice rising and falling, talking without saying much, the pleasantries that fill the air and make the room feel lived-in and natural. More than a hotel room. The subject turns to breakfast, to what Karl might like to do during the day - is he a man who favours a walk? A gallery? A film, perhaps? So much Camille doesn’t yet know, and his questions seem like eager attempts to find out.

Karl rolls over to face him. Camille falters, stops mid-sentence.

“Of course, if you need to get going…”

There’s a pang of sadness in his expression, his eyes are as sorrowful as those of parting lovers. _Which he thinks we are_ , Karl reminds himself. Two men merely snatching a night together, and Camille goes back to his wife and child and Karl goes back to a country still wounded.

“I don’t,” he says, hoping his words will soothe. “I don’t have a return ticket,” he adds quietly.

Now Camille looks confused.

“I didn’t buy one. I wasn’t sure how much time you’d have. Or want. Didn’t want to make assumptions…”

“I understand.”

“I’d love you to show me your city,” Karl says, watching Camille’s face flicker like a spliced film. “And breakfast. And lunch perhaps. But before we go, might we spend a little time right here?” He chances a little kiss, and Camille’s face stills, then breaks into happiness. “I still don’t know what you like to do.”

“Ah, it’s not about me,” Camille says, a slight teasing note in his voice. “Now I’ve learned your circumstances, well, now I know your visit to be in the pursuit of education.”

Karl screws up his face in annoyance. “I’m not seeking you as a schoolmaster,” he protests.

“Of course. Not a schoolmaster then, I shan’t be that if you don’t want it.” Camille thinks for a moment. “A guide, perhaps. If you’ll accept guidance.”

Karl nods.

“But you must indicate what path you wish to take.”

He doesn’t know nearly enough about Camille yet, but Karl has come to the conclusion that the man loves to talk in circles. Maybe now he’s no longer in the military, he’s able to indulge his more fanciful side. He just wishes the man would be straightforward.

Then again, he supposes that he hasn’t exactly led by example. Can’t just come out and say things, has to dance around the subject like he’s scared of being rushed and gored. Well damn it. Face it head on, like the man you are.

“Perhaps you’d like to fuck me?” he says, his voice as light and even as he can make it.

Camille raises one of those lovely eyebrows. “Is that the way you’d like to go?”

Karl represses a curse. “Alright. I’d _like_ you to fuck me.”

“If you’re sure.” Karl shoots him a look. “I’ll guide you through it.”

Camille slides from under the covers and goes looking in his coat pocket, taking out a paper bag, from which he shakes a small round tin.

“I can’t believe you’ve got that,” Karl says, eyes widening.

“Stopped by the pharmacy on the way to meet you.” Camille smiles. "I thought I’d better be prepared. Nothing quite as infuriating as when you _want_ to do it but you can’t.”

He went to buy a tin of salve (or whatever it is) when he didn’t even know what he intended? It’s startling that Camille might consider him such a cheap man that a simple glass of champagne might get him begging to be buggered, but the presumption strikes him as more arousing than insulting. God. To think that _he -_ with _me…_

“I’m surprised,” Camille says. “To be honest I bought the tin for me.”

“Oh.” Karl says dully. “Do you not like it the other way around?”

“No, I - of course not. But that way is…well, it’s more advanced, and some men don’t like it.” He grimaces, and looks embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure if you were - if the way you looked at me back then was out of desperation. If you might take one look at me in peace and think I’m not as appealing as a lovely young lady, or even an unlovely one - well, I thought maybe you might still bugger me. For old time’s sake, or however you might describe it.”

It breaks Karl’s heart to think he thinks so little of himself.

“I’ll guide you,” says Camille again, with a touch of melancholy in his smile. “If you’ll let me.”

He can’t find the words that will assure, while also communicating his enthusiastic agreement, so instead he nods and hopes that will be enough.

And this is how he finds himself lying on his front, still bare, head resting on folded arms, Camille running his hands over him. It feels nice. Relaxing, rather than arousing, at least until Camille’s hands move from his lower back to his buttocks, squeezing them, spreading them, parting them.

His cock stiffens beneath him. Camille runs the back of his hand over his inner thigh.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” he says, contentment colouring his voice.

“Now, I’m going to get you ready.” Camille’s voice is steady, reassuring.

He feels something brush against him, and breathes out slowly so he won’t twitch. It’s not that it feels bad, just surprising. Not like one expects a lot of touch down there, especially not from someone else. Now he feels a pressure. His instinct is to push back.

“Just relax, easy…” comes the murmur, along with Camille gently touching him on the lower back.He wouldn’t have considered that the most obvious place to touch, but it’s romantic to feel his hand there, broad and steady, like a dance or an embrace. Then the pressure at his entrance, and then the sudden shocking sensation of it giving, and something sliding inside. He groans.

“Alright?”

He considers how it feels. Not bad, exactly. Unusual, and it’s hard to ignore the instinct to push back, but he knows this can’t be the whole experience. Doubtful anyone would bother if it was.

“Yes, keep going,” he says, muffled slightly by his forearm.

Another finger enters him, slick, pushing -

Then Camille does something. Must have curled his fingers, because he’s pushing against _something,_ beckoning almost, against something Karl didn’t even know was there. Something that makes him yelp as a wave of pleasure rolls over him, something that makes him throb, ache to be touched. He swears. His voice has emerged as a growl. “Do that _again_.”

“Do you like it?” Camille says, low, seductive. Again, the fingers brush, and where the was pressure before, it seems like something in him is dissolving. He feels himself opening up.

He remembers being with Heloise, the lesson taught there. _Don’t just shove it in, a lady needs a little time before she can enjoy it._ How something tight and dry could become wet and slick and open, and what under normal circumstances might feel unwelcome might become the one thing you desperately need. A hole you need to be filled. Quite literally.

“That’s good,” purrs Camille. “You’re relaxing.”

“Like a woman?”

A low chuckle from Camille, which sends a delightful shiver through him. “Well not quite like a woman, cheri.” The metallic sound of the tin, more slickness sliding into him. “Women do it naturally. We need a little extra help.”

He spreads his legs a little, levers his hips higher in a desperate attempt to drive Camille’s fingers further inside him. Camille slides them free. Karl moans in frustration, but any complaint dies on his lips when he feels Camille’s hands on his buttocks again, spreading them, and Camille’s hand stroking between his legs from behind, gently squeezing his balls, running up the underside of his cock, handling him first gently, then thoroughly when Karl pushes himself into his hand. 

“I think you’re ready.”

Karl nods, pushing himself up a little onto his forearms so he can reach his cock more easily. Harder if he’s flat on the bed.

He feels Camille’s thigh brush against his thigh.

A push. A breach.

Oh _fuck._

 _It’s so goddamn thick_.

Breathe, just…let it, just trust him. It’s been good so far.

Oh god, there’s a slight burn. Almost a tearing feeling. He’d never considered before that he might bleed. He lets out an involuntary whimper. 

“Too much?” Camille says apologetically, and eases himself free. Karl looks back to see him smearing more vaseline - this time all over his cock, and god, if the sight of his hand sliding all over his own slick cock didn’t do something for him -

and now he’s conscious of a weird emptiness, a need to have it back inside him even if it’s going to hurt.

“Put it back in.”

Camille pats him, wipes slipperiness on his buttock, squeezes and massages, reaches forward and ruffles his hair, which feels so incongruously friendly that Karl wants to laugh. He leans forward and presses a kiss between Karl’s shoulders, and this time Karl does laugh, turns his head and tries to kiss back, nearly losing his balance in the process.

“Steady!” Camille says, putting hands on Karl’s hips. “You want me to keep going?”

“Goddamn it, _yes.”_

“Well alright, just…relax, Ok? And if it hurts I want you to tell me to stop.” Camille’s voice is firm. “It might feel strange but it shouldn’t _hurt.”_

“Ha. I always thought it was supposed to hurt. That was what everyone told me. That it hurts and you can’t sit down afterwards.”

Camille makes an incredulous noise. “Well you might hear that kind of talk between some men, but I guarantee none of them have ever done it.” He laughs. “Why would I do it if it was that bad?”

“God, I don’t know!” Karl wishes he could make himself stop talking. He always seems to interrupt Camille, throw him off his mood. Always when things are going so well too. He’s surprised he managed to be so diplomatic during the truce, but in the end, he was trained for negotiation. This is something for which he’s never been briefed.

Of course, he heard the propaganda. Not just that being buggered hurt, but that the enemy loved to rape women and bugger men, to humiliate them. It’s funny. He knows the other side was doing it too, portraying the Germans as an army of brutish sodomite rapists. He’s sure Camille was warned about him, in one way or another. _Kill every last one of them._ Do not love them, certainly.

Funny to think that’s something that’s supposed to be an act of love, of delight, can be turned into something so brutal that it’s used to frighten people into blind patriotism. Something like looting could never cause such outrage. No, it’s always ripping people’s heads off and drinking their blood, so they can convince themselves that the other side are something other than men, men the same as them.

Men who might stroke their lower back, kiss them on a pale shoulder. Men capable of so much more.

“Do you want a little break?” Camille says, no doubt noticing that Karl’s mind is elsewhere.

“No, it’s probably better that I don’t. I’ve started thinking. And no, before I say anything else, it’s not that I’m thinking that I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s that I’m thinking, rather than feeling, and I’d much rather feel.” He scrambles out of his position, rolls over so he can look up at Camille. “Can you hold me for a minute?”

Camille’s face shows surprise, but his voice is as measured as ever. “Certainly.” He lowers himself on top of Karl, wraps his arms around him, his head tucked against Karl’s shoulder. Karl sighs contentedly, kisses him on the neck, clasps his hands around his back. It feels good to have the warm weight on him. He becomes conscious of a thigh between his thigh, of the way his cock is pressing against Camille’s hip. He shifts and hooks his legs through Camille’s, smiles, tips back Camille’s chin, kisses his throat. Runs a hand along his cheek, rakes fingers through his hair. Kisses him again, this time on the mouth, that soft, wonderful, willing mouth.

“If you want we can keep going,” Camille murmurs, running a hand along Karl’s side.

“From this position?” The idea seems lovely. To hold someone in your arms while they joined with you, or whatever poetic way you might want to put it.

“Sure. Just…move this leg a little, that’s it -“ Camille takes hold of Karl’s knee, gently bends it “and I’ll be able to…”

His left leg is nearly wrapped around the man’s waist, which he realises has the effect of putting his arse right where it needs to be for Camille to -

_Oh!_

He feels more open now, whether it’s the position or the exciting prospect of being able to see pleasure pass across Camille’s face, but in any case the burn from before has been replaced with a pleasant strangeness as Camille shifts his hips, steadies Karl at the waist, thrusts into him, the hot hard length inside him striking that part inside him again and again. He’s making noise now, little moans, can’t help it, with every thrust, the feeling strikes him and noise comes, little moans right in Camille’s face. He hopes he doesn’t look too stupid, sound too stupid, drops his sweaty cheek to Camille’s shoulder because it’s too much to look at him right now, his cock is so goddamn hard and whenever either of them move he feels it slide against Camille’s belly, his thigh, _what if they could finish together -_

He reaches down and starts to grab, becomes conscious that Camille is also now moaning, is yelping in fact, and it’s not stupid, it’s astonishingly exciting to know he feels that good.

He lets himself look at Camille, whose mouth is open, eyes glassy, ready for the little death.

Shuddering now, together, and then there’s a hoarse cry, a jolt, a hard, forceful thrust inside him, an overwhelming sensation - and then a wave of hotness, as Camille finishes inside him.

A frantic movement of his own hand and he’s following Camille into orgasm, and then slumping beside him, flushed, sticky, sweaty and happier than he could have thought possible. Camille is beaming.

“You see?” Karl says.

“What?”

“I _wasn’t_ doing it out of desperation.”

He grins and presses a kiss to Camille’s lips.

———————-

He knows it’s considered gauche to have more than a suggestion of breakfast in France, but it’s close enough to lunch time now and both of them are starving. They find a bistro and while the menu is nowhere near as expansive or luxurious as it might have been before the war, there’s good, simple fare available and Karl enjoys the meal and the company.

It’s a cool day but the weather is clear. Camille suggests a walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg. Smaller than he remembered, a little battered, but lovely. Gardeners are out, clipping borders. Children run around with balls, hoops, small boys with marbles. Camille nonchalantly puts an arm around Karl’s waist, and steers him to a less crowded area of the garden.

“I’m sure you’ve been here before,” he says apologetically. “But I always like to look at the sculptures. How they make stone into flesh.”

He hopes he won’t see a cenotaph, a statue of a soldier, but instead it’s all kings, queens, dignitaries, noble figures, writers, playwrights. Classical allegory.

“Here,” Camille says. “The queens and _femmes illustres.”_

A semicircle of monumental women in stone.

“They used to have Jeanne d’arc here but she was moved. Too fragile.” He chuckles. “Ironic really, given her strength.”

The sun is beginning to dip. Camille finds them a bench and they sit down, a little way away from the queens. He takes out a pocket notebook, a stubby pencil. “Do you mind if I…”

“Of the statues?” says Karl, raising an eyebrow.

Camille smiles. “No, of you.”

Karl nods and tries not to feel conscious of his hands, how he’s sitting, every motion he makes. “You want me to keep still?”

“No, keep talking. I’ll manage.” Camille’s standing a few paces away, squinting at him occasionally, tilting his head, and then furiously sketching. “Now, I hope you won’t mind…this will be a little rough. I’m not a polished worker.”

“Better than I could do,” Karl says, grinning.

“Keep talking or you’ll get bored,” Camille warns. He looks up and gives Karl an appraising look, as if he’s somehow seeing past his face into his mind, which Karl finds slightly disconcerting. He remembers far-away stares on men’s faces in the cold.

“How is Germany, after the…loss?” Camille says delicately.

“Not so well,” Karl says, trying to keep the grimace from his face lest it makes him too difficult to draw. “Ersatz food, still. I didn’t end up having the worst of it during the war, because they sent us what they called “the good stuff.” Horsemeat, mostly.”

“I don’t mind horsemeat,” Camille says, “if it’s done well.”

“I’m not supposed to eat it if I’m honest,” Karl says. “Not kosher. Not that you can keep kosher during the war.” He does grimace this time. “And this was hardly what you’d call done well. Just out of a tin.”

“There was a rumour that you were making soap from corpses,” Camille says. “But I never took much stock in it.”

Now it’s Karl’s turn to look at him. Camille’s eyes are still lowered to his page. Karl looks at his lips, his lashes. Funny how people regard those two features as somehow feminine, when men have them too. Same as body hair, he supposes. If you were to go by classical art, women have no attributes, let alone the hair covering them. Even on the face, his sister has hair above her lip, hairs growing on her chin, sparse, but each hair as thick and dark as his. Yet something desirable on a man - virile - is brutish on a woman, and something lovely on a woman - a sensuous lip, long lashes - is suspect on a man, as if someone’s character could be borne on the face.

He wonders what his own face tells, whether an observer can take one look at him and conclude _sodomite_ or _Jew._ Or here, speaking French in the garden - accented French, probably, he’s doubtful he’s achieved flawlessness - if someone can cast their eyes over his face and think _German_ , and whether that translates to _enemy_ or _pitiful vanquished foe._

“How much did you hate us?” Karl finds himself saying.

Camille snorts. “Oh, I don’t know. My father’s a military man, he always said there was honour in it. We are threatened, we defend. I wasn’t so much thinking _kill the beastly Germans_ as I was thinking _protect the glory of France_ , or at least that was a more powerful motivation to me than any other. Maybe others thought otherwise.” He tucks his pencil away in his pocket, blows dust off the page. “Of course, after Christmas…well, I realised that hatred was mandatory, and anything other than hatred, well, it was untenable. But we were punished for it less than you.”

He walks over to Karl. “Would you like to see it?”

Karl takes the sketchbook from him, careful not to touch anything other than the edges of the pages. There, on cream paper, is his face. He sucks in a breath. It’s drawn with the same care that Camille sketched his wife - the drawing he remembers from Christmas day, 1914. Struck him as poignant that a man could recreate the face of a dear one from memory.

In the drawing he’s caught between a smile and a frown. His collar is folded oddly - he checks his own collar and finds it twisted. He’s got one loosely sketched hand resting on the back of the bench - a gesture he can’t remember making, and his coat and suit are formed in thick, rippling lines. The pencil on his face more delicate. The shade of his hat, shadow beneath his eyes. Nose rendered by the shadows around it.

He looks up. There’s a trace of embarrassment in Camille’s face. “I don’t usually show people my sketches,” he confesses.

“It’s exquisite,” Karl says.

“I wanted to be an artist once. My father wanted me to follow him into the military, which I resisted - but, well. He got his way after all.”

“You had a sketchbook at the time,” Karl says. “Do you still have it?”

“Oh, that.” Camille now looks deeply embarrassed. “It’s in a drawer at the house. I don’t look at it much.”

Karl gets to his feet, hands the sketchbook back. Camille tucks it into his pocket.

“May I see it?”

“Well, if you like.” Camille shrugs. “Most of the drawings are awful. I never had time to do anything with any sort of finesse.”

“You have a talent,” Karl counters. “I used to scoff at that kind of thing, but time has proved me wrong on that front. Turns out a world without art in it isn’t much of a world after all.” He smiles. “My voice isn’t a patch on Sprink’s though.”

“It’s not a fair comparison to make,” Camille remarks, tucking the book back into his coat pocket. “And may I remind you that you are not a man without talents.”

He gives Camille a puzzled look. “What would you describe as my talents?”

“You were a fine commander. Anyone else, the night might have ended quite differently.”

Karl laughs. “That was Sprink, not me. I don’t even hold Christmas sacrosanct.”

“Even more impressive,” Camille says firmly. “It was important to the men, not you, and yet you still recognised the significance.”

“Hardly a talent.”

Without acknowledgement, they’ve started walking back the way they came, turning back to Rue Vavin. Karl supposes they’re going to see the sketchbook. Either that or he’s being led back to his hotel, led to a goodbye.

“Your holy days might be about peace and goodwill,” Karl says, “but ours are about survival. Defiance in the face of death, really. From now on, that’s how I’ll think of Christmas too.”

The gardens have quieted now that nannies are taking their children home, and ladies and gentleman taking the air are finding it a bit too chilly. Evening drinks call, dinner preparations.

Karl holds out his arm and Camille takes it.

“Did you ever think,” he says quietly. “That you might have killed me?”

Camille jolts as if struck.

“Every damn day of my life.”

—————

He’s right. The sketches are rough, stained. Mud, mostly, but there’s a few dark smears he recognises as blood.

They’re scattered, random. Almost anything of significance, along with idle drawings of everyday. Two beetles copulating. A hurried rendering of Ponchel and his clock. And then, a drawing that must be from memory. From imagination, he corrects himself - for it’s an outsider’s perspective of the three commanders sitting, drinking Ponchel’s coffee. At that point they still had coffee. Chicory, later, and then later still, roasted acorns and bran.

In the drawing he’s got his own body turned towards Camille. There’s something tender in the gestured line of his hand, raising the coffee to his lips.

Gordon too. He feels strange for othering the other man, for in a sense they were three, yet he never felt the same drive towards Gordon as he did towards Camille Réne Audebert, the spark of kindred, even if he would use _kennenlernen_ about the both of them. Or _connaître_ if he were talking to Camille.

He wonders if Camille would ever consider learning his tongue, imagines German words in Camille’s mouth.

Camille comes back from the other room, bringing him a tray with coffee things on it. “I don’t do as good a job at making it as others,” he apologises, pouring Karl a cup. “No sugar yet, but I can offer you milk at least.” He gestures to the sketchbook. “What do you think?”

“It’s like being back,” Karl says quietly. “The best and worst of it.”

—————————

Lovely house, Karl thinks, as Camille turns on the lamps to cast out the evening dark.

“Dinner first?” says Camille, releasing curtains from their tie backs. “We can either go out or I can manage some eggs, cheese, bread, something simple. Not much of a cook, I’m afraid.”

“Brotzeit is fine,” Karl says with a smile.

Camille looks at him quizzically. “Bread…time?”

Karl’s grin widens. “I didn’t know you knew any German at all!”

“Oh, I picked up a little. Here and there.” It’s Camille’s turn to grin. “I might have had some motivations.” He gives Karl a surprisingly naked, seductive look, which is so out-of-nowhere that it makes him blush. Their intimacy is still so new that it takes him by surprise whenever he’s reminded of it. “But don’t get any ideas,” continues Camille. “I only know the bare minimum of nouns and verbs, so we can’t have a conversation of any consequence. Have to stick to French, I’m afraid. But -“ here, he walks over and tousles Karl’s hair, “I now have a good reason to learn.”

Karl catches hold of his hand and kisses his fingers. “In case you’re wondering, I’m not hungry yet.” He gives Camille what he hopes is an equally wicked look.

“Another round?” Camille says, surprised. “Well, if you’re up for it, I’m sure we can make it happen.”

Karl looks around him. Like he feared, the loveliness of the house reflects a wifely influence. There are even pictures on the mantel of the three inhabitants, and a wedding picture to boot. Nicely vignetted. The bride is holding lilies. The groom looks shockingly handsome.

“Now, I want to be delicate, given that you, uh, live here with your wife and son. Is there somewhere where you wouldn’t mind us…communing?”

“We’ve a guest room,” Camille says, grinning. “But stay here for a moment. Let me get it ready first.”

A miniature flurry of activity as Camille strides from room to room, holding armfuls of linens and various bits and pieces, at one point even holding a jug of water and two glasses - _what can that be for -_ and what looks suspiciously like a manicure set. Karl watches, mystified.

“Come through,” Camille calls, and Karl follows his voice.

It’s a neat spare room with a dresser, a mirror, a writing desk and chair, and a bed, which has sheets and pillows but no blanket. The blankets are folded on the dresser, and the bed is incongruously spread with towels.

“What are you planning to do, exactly?” asks Karl in a low voice, coloured by suspicion.

Camille sits down on the bed.

“You asked me what I liked to do,” he starts. “Now, don’t take my request as an order. If you don’t like it in any way, we can do something else.”

“Oh,” says Karl. “What is it?” He spots the jug, the glasses. “Do you want me to pour glasses of water over your head?”

Camille bursts into laughter. “Not exactly!”

“Well, what then? You seem to have rather the arsenal of…obscure things. I’ve no idea what you’re planning. Nothing violent, I hope. I’m, uh…” he falters. “That’s not something I’d prefer to do.”

Camille swallows. “No. Not exactly that either.”

“So what do you like?”

“I like it rough. And I like to be filled.”

Karl breathes a sigh of relief. “So, you want me to bugger you?”

“Well, eventually. But first -“ Camille raises his head, looks Karl straight in the eyes. His irises golden in the electric light. “I’d like you to put your hand in me.”

Karl splutters, stares at Camille, hoping that he’s joking. He appears serious, which makes sense because it’s not so much a joke as a horrible, misguided suggestion. “I can’t! I’ll hurt you.”

“Karl,” Camille says slowly, seriously. “It’s not for everyone, I know, but it can be done.”

“There’s no _way_ that’s going to work. Do you want me to kill you or something?”

“Trust me. It’s good for me.”

“How can it possibly -“

“You asked me what I wanted, well…this is it.” He shrugs. “If you trust me, I’ll guide you. I’ve done it before. We just need a bit of time, that’s all.”

He looks so earnest, and there’s a slight plea in his eyes.

“Alright, damn you,” Karl finds himself saying. He just can’t turn away from that look. “But if there’s any sign that I’m hurting you we _have_ to stop.” He tries hard not to imagine blood. “So tell me what to do, then.”

Camille takes his hand. “You right handed?”

“You know I’m right handed. Does it matter?”

“Probably easier to do with your dominant hand.” Camille’s slowly turning over his hand, inspecting it, running a thumb over his nails. Maybe wondering how it might feel inside him. The _whole_ hand, Karl realises, having no idea how it’s possible to shove a hand inside a man as if he’s a cow. He supposes he’ll find out.

“I’d tell you to take off any rings but you already don’t have any.” Camille presses a kiss to his palm, looks up at him. “Your nails are short but I’m going to file them.”

Ah. The reasoning behind the manicure set. He’s getting a _manicure_ from a man he’s about to not just bugger but…well, do whatever the hell this is. The situation is extremely weird, and it’s only the two previous encounters with Camille that make him squash down his immediate instinct to run out of the room. Well that, and the fact that he really likes him. He’s kind, and clever, and seems to understand him. It’s not as if having his nails filed and Camille wiping them clean with a wet cloth is _bad_ , necessarily, it’s certainly not the worst thing he’s done, but god knows it’s not what he would consider a prelude to sex.

Camille finishes tidying up his hand. Puts everything away, and leans back on his hands.

“Right. Now. We’re not going to be going straight to it, because that probably _would_ kill me.” He chuckles, which Karl finds oddly reassuring. “So now, I want you to touch me.”

Alright then. He can work with that.

He starts with a kiss, warm, wet, gentle, a little bristly because neither of them have shaved, but something about that - he relishes the scratchiness, it reminds him that he’s doing this with a man, and god he loves that. Always looked and wanted to touch, never knew if he’d be allowed, and now…he can touch all he wants. He runs his hand through Camille’s hair and instinctively tugs on it a little. Camille gasps, and Karl abruptly releases him.

“Do that again.”

So he pulls Camille’s hair again gently, close to the roots of it, and watches as his eyes close in some kind of rapture. How odd, but intriguing.

He starts working on Camille’s collar and tie and waistcoat and all the rest of it, dropping pieces to the floor. Tugs his shirt free from his trousers, slides his hand underneath it, wrenches the buttons out of their irritatingly small buttonholes, shoves the shirt down Camille’s arms until he shakes his hands free from it, licks a stripe along his jaw and watches him open his mouth in response. Touches, keeps touching, until Camille is hard and naked and flushed, still sitting on the bed, Karl’s hand sliding along his thigh, putting his fingers in the join where thigh meets groin, taking his cock in a loose grip and stroking it, watching Camille put his head back, eyelids fluttering, chest rising and falling with every heavy breath. “ _That’s good,_ ” he says in a voice that sounds not so much like speech but escaping air.

When Karl has him undressed and hard, Camille puts a stop to his caresses. He opens the tin of vaseline, takes Karl’s hand and begins to slather him with it. Karl frowns. Having this much lubricant involved makes him feel like his hand is the friction point of some vast, grinding machine.

“Now.” Camille says. “First, start with fingers. Slowly. Then, when I’m ready, you need to hold your fingers and thumb together, like _this._ ” He demonstrates with his own hand. “It should go in then.”

He then gets up and rearranges everything on the bed, including himself. Karl waits.

“Have some water,” Camille says, gesturing to the jug and glasses. Karl laughs, realising that the mysterious jug was simply there for thirst and nothing else.

He sips, watching Camille get ready. He’s on all fours, a couple of pillows propped under his head and chest. Karl suddenly realises that he’s still wearing most of his own clothes. Trousers, an undershirt, shoes even - and now his right hand is covered in grease, he can’t take them off. By fumbling with his left hand, holding his right awkwardly aloft and out of the way of anything it might smear on, he manages to at least dislodge his shoes and trousers. He looks up to notice Camille grinning at him over his shoulder.

“I’m ready, by the way,” Camille says.

“I think you were a bit pre-emptive with the vaseline,” grumbles Karl.

Camille’s voice is still golden with amusement. “You could have asked me to help with the clothes if you wanted.”

“Spoken like someone who wants my whole arm crammed up their arse,” Karl counters, advancing on him.

“Oh so _now_ you’re eager,” Camille retorts. He wags his arse at Karl in a teasing fashion, which is almost too ridiculous to be sexy, if it weren’t for the fact that his display makes Karl desperate to grab him and take him. He reaches out with his left hand, grabs a handful of buttock. Camille draws in a sharp breath. “Now,” he says, looking backwards. “Tease me.”

Karl experimentally presses his index finger against that tight flesh, rubbing at it, running the slick back of his hand between Camille’s buttocks, then spreading him in an effort to get him to give a little.

“Keep working at it.” Camille’s voice is low, punctuated by breaths. “It’ll go in.”

He presses again, moving the tip of his finger over it, until with an exhalation, the tight ring of muscle eases slightly and his finger is slowly sliding in, feeling almost as if it’s being pulled.

It’s a curious feeling. Tight around the base of his finger, but looser within.

He tries to remember what movement caused him pleasure, what direction he should curve his fingers. He tries angling them downwards, and is rewarded by trembling thighs and a little moan.

“Keep going.”

Now everything’s feeling looser. He chances another finger, crooking it, rubbing it against the tight walls. More moans, pretty ones at that, moans that make his own cock throb, desperate to be inside him.

“More,” Camille says, sounding ragged.

Another finger. Another. Now his fingers are squeezed together tightly inside him, forming a point. He can’t crook them anymore, they’re forced together. There’s a powerful, squeezing sensation, as if Camille’s body is trying to expel him. It feels too tight, like it can’t possibly be good. He ever-so-cautiously eases his hand free, watching the hole close tightly behind him.

Camille looks backwards, glares. His eyes are dark now - the pupils full, glassy. His voice is something of a snarl.

“Keep _going.”_

Well alright then. He slides the fingers in again. At first they go in shockingly easily, with a wet, slick, sloppy sound.

“Turn them,” Camille instructs. “Gently. You can get further in that way.”

 _Like a screw?_ Karl thinks. Is that why they call it screwing?

He obliges, turning his hand, and he feels it give, and god, he’s in up to his knuckles. The flesh is a band stretched tightly around his hand. It’s obscene to think how far he’s stretched him.

Camille has dropped his head, raised his shoulders. Beads of sweat stand across his back, and he’s issuing a low, wounded-sounding continuous moan. Karl stills his hand, waits with it crammed inside him, glistening.

“Is it too much?”

Camille seems unable to speak for a moment. Karl takes the hint and slides his hand back slightly, before it rushes out. He moves his hand, gets the feeling back into aching fingers. Camille heaves for a minute, then utters something startling between ragged breaths.

“ _So much bigger than hers.”_

Oh god. The thought of the wife in the sketch, in the picture, all softness and lily white hands, cramming her fist inside her husband’s rear. It’s slightly distasteful, although he’s not sure why, because when he thinks of Heloise doing something like this, it seems normal enough. Maybe because he knows the circles his own wife travels in, a world where men swap clothes with women, where the hand is as important a part of sex as anything genital. Camille’s wife, on the other hand, seems a normal, lovely young mother, not tempted by deviance. 

“She…does this?” he asks incredulously.

“She likes the power,” Camille gasps. 

And that’s another thought. It’s a little alarming to see another man so vulnerable before him, letting him do something dangerous and potentially violent all for the pursuit of sex, but when Karl thinks of it - women subject their bodies to two violent events. Sex - which for many is a joyless, if not painful affair, and childbirth - being rent open, risking death. Maybe for someone who’s gone through that, to shove something large inside her husband, to see him moaning and swearing and sobbing - maybe that’s catharsis. Even if he enjoys it.

“Are you enjoying this?” he asks doubtfully. “How does it feel?”

“Powerful. Overwhelming. So much I can barely stand it.”

“You _want_ to barely stand it?” Karl asks doubtfully.

“Sometimes, yes.”

Maybe it’s not too much for him, but it’s too much for Karl right now. That’s not the kind of power he wants. He sighs, hoping he won’t become a disappointment. “If it’s alright with you I think I’d prefer to do something else.”

“Fuck me then?” Camille’s voice has a hopeful note.

Now that is something he understands - and having now experienced it himself, he feels assured that he won’t cause hurt.

He takes out his cock. Thinks of the smooth, slick passage he’ll now have, now that Camille has opened up for him. He palms his arse, kneading it a little, enjoying Camille’s appreciative little noises.

 _God, I want to take you_ , he finds himself thinking. _Spread your sweet little arse and take you._ He tries the words aloud, but sticks to a low mutter in his own language. Camille gets the gist and moans a little, arching his back, rocking his hips.

He holds firmly to Camille’s hip with one hand and guides his cock in with the other, and oh god, oh _god-_

The hotness, the tightness - but not too tight, a pleasurable, consistent squeeze along the length of him - it feels right, it feels _right,_ like he’s meant to be inside him. He thrusts, gently at first, and then when Camille spits a _yes, god yes,_ he takes the hint and grabs his hips, one hand still absurdly slippery, leaving smears all over hip and thigh - and fucks him nice and hard and steadily, his thighs slapping against Camille’s arse, his cock sliding free from time to time, which makes Camille beg for more, _please, please, keep fucking me,_ and before he knows what he’s doing he’s deep in him and he’s leaning over him, pressing him down into the pillows, into the bed, and taking hold of his face, his jaw, saying _you want me to fuck you do you? Say you want me,_ wishing he could reach to stick his fingers in Camille’s mouth - god knows why but he wants them there, wants to touch his lips and tongue and teeth, wants to see him with something in his mouth, maybe wants to risk Camille losing his control and biting his fingers like an animal, and Camille, eyes closed, head pressed sideways against the pillow, mouth agape, moans _oh god, fuck me, fuck me, you’re so good, I love you, fuck me, I love you -_

_I love you._

There it is, then.

He doesn’t have long to consider it before Camille cries out and tightens on him and he’s spilled inside him, hot, wet, sloppy, perfect somehow, and he slumps on top of him, sweaty chest to sweaty back, fingers in Camille’s hair and whispers back _I love you._

_———————————_

“Did you have any comfort during the war?” Camille says gently, stroking Karl’s hair back from his forehead. A soothing motion.

“No,” Karl says. “I couldn’t risk it.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, remembering the loneliness of the trenches. So many bodies pressed around him and yet there he was, in his own makeshift room, with no one to hold. Strange to be so intimate and yet not able to risk any intimacy, so lacking in privacy but yet so alone. He looks up at Camille’s half-shadowed face, his chin, the fine lines of care around his dark eyes. “Did you?”

Camille looks down at him, runs his hand along Karl’s face, fingers brushing against his stubble. “Not for most of the war. But I did once. Well, twice. Twice in one night.”

Karl swallows. “Did it help you?”

Was the pleasure enough to stave off the loneliness, to forget the misery of it all?

Camille smiles faintly. Karl closes his eyes and listens as he continues to talk.

“I didn’t get many chances, but I managed some leave. I met a young officer from another unit. Bought him a drink, suggested that he might like to join me for something more. He and I took a walk into a field and I let him have me against a tree.”

It seems so perfunctory to Karl, so lacking in true intimacy, but he doesn’t say anything critical, lest Camille interpret it as judgment.

Camille seems a little far away now, lost in the memory. Feeling the bark beneath his hands, no doubt, the panting of the officer behind him. Karl now knows the noises Camille might make, but in his mind Camille is quiet, grunting a little, stoic as he’s buggered. The quiet suppression of feeling of the front. Pretending to be cheerful when needed, casting aside all emotion when emotion isn’t called for. Choking back tears, masking pain with jokes. Hiding vulnerability with a clench, a grunt, a stare into the darkness.

It’s no way to live, Karl thinks. A man can’t hide all feeling for long.

“He was nervous,” Camille says. “He finished far too early. Barely got inside me before it was all over, poor soul.”

Karl murmurs something soothing. A reminder that he’s still there. “What did you do then?”

“I went back for more.”

Karl lets out a small noise of surprise.

“I’m well aware of how it sounds,” Camille says. “I can’t explain it - truly. But I’d already risked something, and I decided that if I were going to disgrace my position, I might as well do it properly. It was either that or self-abusing alone in a field, and that sounded far too disappointing an end to the evening for me to contemplate.”

“What happened to the officer?” Karl asks.

“Oh, he got his clothes back on and fled, more or less. Back to the safety of the bar. Drink away his shame, perhaps. Not everyone copes as well as you did.”

Karl turns and presses a kiss against Camille’s hand. “Oh, _liebling,_ ” he murmurs. He doesn’t open his eyes. Hearing Camille’s voice in the dark is enough.

“I went back to the bar,” Camille continues. “Found a _sapeur_ who was up for it. We didn’t even make it into the field that time, just behind a building. Some kind of storage shed. When he found out someone had already had me, had finished in me - he pushed me against the wall and said _you creamy bitch.”_

Karl is horrified. “He treated you like an animal,” he says, opening his eyes and staring at Camille’s pensive face.

“He did,” admits Camille. “He had me then, swore at me the whole time, and it was rough. Bruises all up my arm where he grabbed me. But it was what I needed.”

“I don’t like to think of it,” Karl mutters.

Camille sighs. “Sometimes it’s easier to accept roughness than kindness.” He smiles - an odd, sad smile that makes Karl sorry to bear witness to it. “Besides, it might have been the _sapeur’s_ last time to hold anyone.”

Karl finds tears welling in his eyes, then. He feels silly to feel so emotional, when he managed the whole war without shedding a tear. But the thought of Camille - oh, Camille Réne, the worry in his eyes when they met for parley, as they sat with tight, shrunken smiles, the picture of strained civility as Ponchel - dead now - poured them coffee, and they drunk as if it might be the last coffee they ever had. The thought of him, meeting men whom he might never see again - much like how Karl never forgets the face of the men he killed, men he’ll never know. That curious, horrible intimacy of war. He weeps for it all, now. What they could have been, in a happier year.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he finds himself saying, his voice hopeless in the dark.

“Oh Karl, oh, cheri,” Camille says, pulling Karl up to kiss him, hands all over his face now, so much intimacy, so much touch. No more than a breath away from him at any moment. His words warm on Karl’s lips. “You don’t have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tiny fandom! If you're reading this fic, welcome!
> 
> I find it interesting the way that in Germany at this time, sexuality science was really taking off, and scientists were examining what it meant to be queer or trans. Also that Berlin was a really good place to be queer, and to be Jewish...until it wasn't. 
> 
> France legalised homosexuality by omitting a law against it, either purposefully or otherwise, in 1791. 
> 
> I've done my best with figuring out what was available and what was where in 1919-or-so-Paris, but I've only been to Paris for about 5 minutes so any geographical inaccuracies are mine. 
> 
> The title is a misquote of a Stars song "In Our Bedroom After The War." It's got nothing to do with the plot of this fic at all, but the title's too perfect and I had to go with it.


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